Rhett-5 months old

Better late than never!

What a fun age this is-Rhett is learning new things every day and it is so much fun to watch him discovering things. At 5 months:

-Rhett is 17.7 lbs! He is out of his infant carrier and into a new big boy car seat. We got him the same model that we have for Jackson, but it is the newer model and much nicer and more padded. So, of course once we saw how cozy and comfy Rhett was in the new car seat, we had to go buy Jackson the same one. Money, money, money! Rhett is sleeping so much better in the car now and for longer stretches.

-He got his first cold at about a week ago at 5 1/2 months old. Jackson brought a nasty cold home and I tried my hardest to keep them apart, but sure enough Rhett started sneezing and his nose started running. Jackson's turned into a nasty upper respiratory infection which has thankfully resolved, but Rhett's went away just as fast as it came, thank God. It was just a couple of days of discomfort, so not bad at all. Every time that Jackson has been sick, I have tried to expose myself to the virus so that I can make antibodies to pass on to Rhett through nursing. I don't know if that made a difference in the severity of his cold or not, but hopefully it is helping. I just didn't want Rhett to get an ear infection or a cough, which he didn't get either. :)

-Rhett had his first solid food the day he turned 5 months old! He had organic rice cereal and has since had oatmeal, bananas, pears, and sweet potatoes. His favorite has been pears. Like Jackson was, he was sort indifferent to solids at first, but he is slowly coming around.

-He is grabbing at everything! He loves water bottles, faces, my hair (ouch), and his toys. He is becoming more curious and interested in things. He loves his big brother and seems to be amused by pretty much everything Jackson does. Jackson gets tickled when Rhett grabs on to him but sometimes Rhett will scratch or grab Jackson's face and we have to remind Jackson that Rhett is learning how to use his hands. Jackson is extremely patient and gentle (for the most part) with Rhett.

-He had his first hotel stay at a great B&B called The B.eaufort Inn and Spa in Beaufort, SC. We were there for work and stayed for a night in the Innkeepers cottage, which had 2 bedrooms, but we all ended up in the same bed that night. Needless to say, I did not get a lot of sleep that night, but it was a fun time. We had a delicious dinner at 11th St. Dockside in Port Royal and then went for ice cream and took Jackson to the playground on the river. It was a fun trip, but it is definitely more work to travel and stay overnight with 2 babies. Jackson's first hotel stay was in Savannah, so it was neat that Rhett's was Beaufort.

Main House where breakfast is served:

 Innkeepers Cottage:

-His favorite music is Celtic music and Enya. I know that sounds funny, but Rhett is crazy about the Enya channel on Pandora. Justin has been telling me that he uses it when I am not home and Rhett gets fussy because it calms him down and he loves it. The past couple of weeks, every time that we put the Enya channel on Pandora, Rhett gets SO excited and starts kicking his feet, moving his hands around, and "talking" to our TV. It is so funny how much he loves that music. There are several Celtic songs that come on and he just goes crazy. We cant figure out what he loves so much about it, but it is really cute!

-He is still sleeping in the pack and play our room! This was certainly not the plan. We were going to move him at 5 months like we did with Jackson, but once he got a cold, I wanted to keep him in with us until he got over it. After that our baby monitor crapped out so the manufacturer sent us a new one, which we just got today. Hopefully we will transition him to the crib soon, but he is still waking every 3 hours or so to eat. Then from about 5:30 AM until 7 or so, he is up every 15-30 minutes fussing and I have to bounce him and rock him to get him back to sleep.

-Me and Justin realized that Rhett never has really used his swing, which is so funny b/c with Jackson we used the swing all the time. Jackson would nap for 3 hours at a time and we would go through numerous packs of batteries. Now that we have a newer swing that plugs in, Rhett doesn't like to stay in it too long. Go figure!

-Rhett continues to love bath time and has found his *ahem* "toolkit" (as the ultrasound tech put it). He reaches for it constantly during diaper changes (which makes changing a poopy diaper very interesting) and during bath time, he holds on to it for dear life. haha

-At 5 months, Rhett continues to be a happy go lucky baby and he has such a great demeanor and an huge smile. A few strangers have come up and commented on how great his little smile is and how happy he seems. He is still a feisty thing when he is mad, but what a sweet and precious baby he is!

Here are some photos from 5 months:

Jackson's 3 year old Pirate Party, visit with family, and 3 year old well visit stats

To start, today we had Jackson's 3 year old well visit. Jackson gave the doctor an earful during the visit! He was talking to her a mile a minute and was being so silly. He did great and we found out that he is:

Weight-32.5 lbs-54th percentile
Height-40 in-92nd percentile
BMI=14.3-4th percentile (doctor says he is perfectly fine and not underweight. She said you typically see this in very long and lanky children)

Now backtracking to Jackson birthday party weekend. We had his party at the Low Country Children's Museum in downtown Charleston. We rented it out after hours to have a private party and it was awesome to have the place to ourselves. Jackson and his buddies had a lot of fun playing and especially loved the water room, the castle, and the pirate ship. We ran out of time to do all of the rooms, but it was a great time. Justin's sister and her family came all the way from Dallas to visit with us, meet mister Rhett, and to be at Jackson's party! It was so much fun seeing them! Jackson really loved spending time with his Aunt Boo Boo,Uncle A, and cousins Kaylan and Kendall. We had fun doing a carriage ride around downtown, spending time at the beach walking around the market, going to the aquarium, eating good seafood, and just visiting together. Here are some pictures from the party and visit with family. I wish I had gotten more pictures at Jackson's party like a group photo with his friends/family, pictures of him playing with more friends and him opening presents, but at least we got some good video on our video camera.

All set for the guests to arrive

Favors!

Lauren was out of town the week of Jackson's party, so we weren't able to have one of her awesome cakes this year for Jackson's party. This was from Publix, but it was still cute.

Jackson loves his Uncle A

Fun with Turner

 Justin's mom and her boys

 The Grandkiddos-love Kendalls face in this-classic!

 My awesome sis in law!

Few Rhett professional photos (taken at 10 weeks old)

These are very late, but our photographer had computer problems and we got them really late! We took them at home in our bedroom, which is exactly where we had Jackson's 10 week photos taken. It was not a nice day outside, and I wish we could have gotten some outside shots. Oh well, I think they turned out nice.

 Check out the finger! My little rebel :)

Jackson is 3 years old!

I don't even know how it is possible that 3 years has already passed since I first held my sweet 6 1/2 lb beautiful baby boy. It is going by too quickly! He amazes me every day with his intelligence, sweetness, and wonderful personality in general. He is so incredibly special to us and as I have said before, he brings us such joy that we never knew was possible. At three years old:

-He is a talker. We have long conversations and sometimes he blows my mind with his amazing vocabulary. He repeats everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that he hears! :) I think I am just so surprised at how much he comprehends at 3 years old. He is becoming his own person more and more every day. He is very outgoing these days and will talk to anybody. Currently he is telling everybody that he sees that he is going to Disney World in October and that he is going to play soccer. People who have known him for a long time keep remarking at how he seems to have come out of his shell in the last few months. He has become quite the little extrovert!

-He is having a ball at 3 year old preschool. His behavior has been great and the teachers say he so much fun in the classroom. Two things: When I went to pick him up from school the other day, his teacher took me aside and said she had to tell me a funny story. She said they were all singing a song they had been learning that had a little dance with it. His teachers said they heard someone singing really loud and it was Jackson and when the looked over he was really into it, so they got tickled and sort of stepped back to watch him. At that point, they said all of the other kids were watching and following him while he was leading them in the song and dance.  Can I just say that I absolutely LOVED hearing this story? All I can say is he got it from his momma! The other thing is that his main teacher is a retired 3rd grade teacher. She said she wanted to show me what he painted. The kids were given finger paints and Jackson make a beautiful picture (if I do say so myself). His teacher asked him what it was and he said it was lava flowing out of a volcano. She said she was shocked at how articulate he is and that he is very creative. I am so proud of my smart boy!

-He is a good eater, although he still wont eat vegetables! Thankfully his multivitamin helps to supplement what he is missing, but I am going to have to start sneaking them in my recipes. I have some great recipe books to help me with that. Some of his favorite foods are: Pulled pork BBQ, Brisket,bacon, rotisserie chicken, macaroni and cheese, fruit salad, cheese poofies, deli meats, chicken nuggets from Chick Fil A, and yogurt. Of course he is crazy about chocolate, ice cream, and cookies...but what kid isn't? He still drinks milk and water only, but we do let him have juice when he goes to birthday parties. The only fast food that he has had is Chick Fil A, but he doesn't really like french fries. He will  not touch vegetables, pasta, or pizza.

-He's really into soccer and riding his bike right now. He will kick his soccer ball all around the yard and down the sidewalks. He loves playing outdoors. He starts soccer on Saturday, so it will be interesting to see how he does. I am just looking forward to seeing how cute he looks in his outfit! :) We got him his big boy bike for his birthday and he is riding like a champ.

-It is wonderful having him potty trained but he has a fear of public restrooms. He refuses to use them.  I changed his diaper many months ago in Whole Foods restroom and it traumatized him. He said the toilets scared him b/c they were too loud. Now he wont use any public restroom. We have tried to get him to at least walk in the restroom, and he will, but then he says "lets get outta here now!" If we dont leave, he will have a meltdown. We really have to work on this before our trip to Disney World. We stayed at the Beaufort Inn recently and he used the potty in our room, so that is forward progress.

 -He has really warmed up to Rhett and has stepped up as a wonderful and loving big brother. He loves to help me change Rhett's diaper, feed Rhett his solid food, and hold Rhett. When Rhett cries, Jackson will sing him songs and try to make him laugh. He is constantly kissing Rhett and showing him new things/toys. I can't wait until they are able to interact even more. One cute thing that Jackson says is when Rhett has a complete meltdown in the car, Jackson will say "Mommy and Daddy can you make Rhett stop? He is scared-ing my ears!" :) Jackson also loves to help me pump (breast milk) in the mornings. He will come in the room with me and sometimes he plays with his toys, but other times he will "help" hold the pump and put some of the pieces together. He says "Look mommy I am helping you pump your boobies". HAHA Hopefully we aren't messing him up too much :)

-Jackson loves to help me cook and is great at stirring the scrambled eggs, getting stuff out of the refrigerator, and rinsing off the dishes. Speaking of scrambled eggs, he can sing the ending credits from the show "Frasier" (Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs). I love how he gets a deep voice to say "scrambled eggs" at the end. How stinking cute is this!?

-Although the threes seem to have brought a new found sassiness from Jackson, he is still extremely affectionate and loving to us. One of my favorite parts of the day is putting him down for his afternoon nap. He usually asks me to snuggle with him for a minute and when I do, he snuggles in so close to me and says "Awww sweet honey, I love you so much forever and ever" and "Aww mommy you are my best best friend and I love you". Sometimes he will give me a big kiss and says "Do you know what that means mommy? That means I love you so much!" It just doesn't get much better than that.

-The sassiness has been challenging to deal with, though. Some of his not so nice things that he says: "oh no YOU dont tell me what to do mommy!", "I make the rules", "You will never tell me what to do" and "you better think about it Daddy or you will go to time out!". When he gets put in time out, he has been hitting and acting really nasty so now he spends time in his room. We also began taking things away like dessert and toys when he hits and that seems to be more effective than time out right now. He is definitely learning how to push our buttons and talking back a lot these days. I know he is testing us.

-But I cant wrap this up without talking about his amazing memory and sense of humor. First, this child remembers everything and brings up things from the past all the time. He remembers details like you wouldn't believe and he can recite a book back to you after only a few times having it read to him. Now, that, he gets from his Daddy! As for his sense of humor, he is hilarious and loves to make us laugh. He is really clever and comes up with the silliest stuff. He gets so proud when he says something that surprises us and really makes us laugh. He made Rhett laugh the other day and was so proud.

I could go on and on about this boy-he is so amazing and we are so proud of him. I can't believe we have been blessed with two beautiful boys. But since this is about Jackson, I will just say that these past 3 years with just been nothing short of wonderful and as I always tell him every night before bed, he makes me so happy every single day. We are so proud of Jackson and who he is becoming. He is so special to us! Happy 3rd Birthday my precious boy!





Still to come: Jackson's 3rd bday pirate party and photos, Rhett professional pics, and Rhett-5 month update.